Have you ever lied about your age?

I think everyone I know has lied about their age at some point. When I was in high school I made myself a fake American license in the name of “Daniel Bradley”. If I recall correctly my birthday was November 23, 1978. I downloaded the template on the interiorwebs and printed it out once I had filled in the necessary info. I then went to Grand & Toy at Yorkdale Mall (this was when it was still there) and had them laminate it for me…the guy gave me the strangest look when I asked him to laminate that card, I’ll never forget.

Why did I lie about my age? Why does any 16 year old kid lie about his age? I wanted to go to bars and R rated movies, buy alcohol, cigarettes, and porn – remember, the Interwebs were mad slow back then and even had they been high speed there wasn’t near the abundance of pornography available online yet. I am sure you all can think of a million and one other reasons why you might have lied about your age to be older when you were a teenager who wasn’t old enough to do certain things yet.

Was I believed? Hell yes I was! Looking back I am really surprised I was believed but then again most people wouldn’t have believed that such things were relatively readily available to be downloaded online back then. I just printed it up on my printer and while it did look pretty close to the real thing (the colors were slightly off) nowadays there is no way such a thing would work. The other thing I think which worked in my favor was the fact that it was a license. People saw license and thought there was no way I could get my hands on it without it being legit. Ah, those were simpler times!

I wonder if I still have that license lying around somewhere…I gotta have a look-see.

Now here is the common sense instructional aspect for any of you teenagers reading this. If you’re going to get a fake ID (or borrow someone else’s) LEARN THE INFO ON THE ID!

This summer on the way up to my friend’s cottage on a long weekend – I am pretty sure it was Canada Day weekend – I stopped at a “Foodland” in Mt. Albert, Ontario to buy some beer because they were running out at the cottage. I was actually very lucky to find the place as all other LCBOs and Beer Stores near my friends’ cottage were closed but because this was a supermarket which had an LCBO/Beer Store in it they were still open. Anyway, while I was waiting for my turn at the cash register I saw this kid get totally turned down for buying beer. He used an ID that was from, if I recall correctly, Massachusetts and knew NONE of the info about the address on the ID. That is such an amateur mistake. Granted, I no longer remember my own ID’s address I mentioned above but hey, it was from over a decade ago! Notice how I still remember the name and birthday? That’s because I had that memorized so I could rattle it off if ever questioned. Because when you look young and you’re using fake ID (or borrowed ID) you have to be able to be believable about it. Who doesn’t know their own address? Oh, and in case you’re wondering, they didn’t card me when I got to the front of the line at the Mt Albert Foodland Beer Store…I was insulted they thought I looked so old.

Now that I have contributed to the delinquency of minors everywhere and told all y’all where you should go if you live in Toronto and want booze on the long weekend on the way up to Cottage Country I think I can get outta here and go drink some beer.